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Description of the Ruins of an Ancient City discovered near Palenque, Kingdom of Guatemala, in America; from the Original Report of Captain Don Antonio dal Rio: followed by a Critical Investigation into the History of the Americans, by Doctor Paul F. Cabrera. 4to. pp. 198. London 1822. H. Berthoud.

This volume, mixed with some curious matter, contains about as fanciful an antiquarian hypothesis as we ever met with. The gallant Captain del Rio having surveyed and reported upon a certain mass of ruins in New Spain, the learned Doctor Cabrera has made it the foundation of a theory in which he traces the original population of America as plainly as if, like Edie Ochiltree, he "minded the bigging o't."

A Preface impresses on readers the authenticity of the original MS. of del Rio, which lies at the Publisher's for the inspection of the sceptical. Though written in 1787, the prevalent Spanish apathy suffered his Report to lie among the Archives unnoticed till the late movements of revolution brought it to light. The Ruins to which it relates seem almost as little known as the MS.; for, we are told that even at Mexico and Guatemala they are ignorant of their existence. Dr. Cabrera, however, had heard of them before 1794, when he composed his Researches; and Humboldt mentions them on rumour, never having been himself in the quarter where their site is laid down. This locality is about fifteen miles from Palenque, in the province of Cuidad Real de Chiapa. The natives call the place Casa de Piedras, Stone Houses, from fourteen solid buildings of stone still remaining; and the ruins extend from 7 to 8 leagues in length, though in proportion narrow, in parts not exceeding half a league.

When Captain Del Rio reached the spot, agreeably to King of Spain's command, he found it necessary to fell and clear away the wood, in order to survey the buildings. He employed the Indians in this labour, and afterwards in making the excavations which his investigation required. The situation is described as being very fine, on a mountain, surrounded by the River Micol, in a fertile country, with many rivers abounding in físh, a delicious climate, and rich in all that could render life easy and luxurious. The ruins of this "Palencian" City are further said to resemble Roman Ruins; and the remains of an aqueduct confirms our author in opinion, that the new world was not unknown to these masters of the old. Similar ruins in Yucatan are alleged in confirmation of this doctrine. The buildings are said to resemble the gothic in their interior, and a print is given of one of the most remarkable of them, which, in our opinion, is sufficient in itself to overthrow the theory of their very remote antiquity. To talk of medallions, figures in stucco, relievos, devices, &c. &c. at the assigned period, is little short of the grossest absurdity. Of the flint lances, conical pyramids, earthen jars, hearts of dark stone called Challa, and even balls of vermilion, found in digging, we shall say nothing, except that most of these articles tend to prove the futility of the Antiquarian's arguments.

To these arguments we shall therefore address ourselves very briefly. Dr. Cabrera quotes Calmet and Moctezuma, Eusebius and Nunez de la Vega, Diodorus and Clavigero, and many other authorities, to show (in the absence of all the annals and records of Spanish America, which were destroyed by its Catholic conquerors in their zeal to efface every recollection of pagan idolatry,) that an individnal named Votan (signifying "Heart,") was acquainted with the old and new Continents, and passed to and fro, four times, across the Atlantic!!! To support this assertion he appeals to South American MSS., metallic plates found, and the rude effigies in stone at the Palencian City. From these data he argues that Votan was the third of his race; that he led seven families to Mexico and settled them there; and that other families of the same tribe, called Culebra, or Snake, also found their way to the adjacent provinces. Votan is therefore declared to be "the first populator of the New World;" yet we hear of the intermarriage of his people with natives of a different race! In one of the documents rested upon, the following dictum is set down as issuing from the mouth of Votan -- "I am Culebra because I am Chivim;" and this the learned Commentator says, "with a little study, admits of a clear and convincing explanation"! We confess that we think his explanation quite the reverse; for it amounts to no more than an unsubstantial and idle assertion, that Votan therein shows that "he is a Hivite originally of Tripoli in Syria, which he calls Valum Chivim, where he landed in his voyages to the old Continent." These were pretty voyages for that age of the world, from Tripoli at the bottom of the Mediterranean, to Hispaniola and the Gulf of Mexico!! We beg our readers to observe what that age was, agreeable to Dr. Cabrera. It appears from Nunes de la Vega, that Votan was the grandson of Noah, and had probably therefore studied navigation during the Flood. He had seen the Tower of Babel, and was sent by God to divide and portion out the Indian lands. Elsewhere Votan is held to be the offspring of the Tyrian Hercules, and it is maintained that Hispaniola or "Septimania, beyond a doubt the island of Atlantis," was his place of resort for peopling the continent of America. In this arrangement, instead of Babel, it is said to be Rome which the mighty traveller visited, and the epoch is fixed to a year by the building of a temple to Romulus and Remus, A.U.C. 464.

Upon this point we shall say no more. If our epitome has explained the original peopling of America to our readers, it will be an unexpected pleasure to us, as we candidly acknowledge that it has not produced that degree of knowledge in our own minds. Perhaps they may entertain doubts, and think the hypothesis at least as rational which supposes the tide of population to have flowed from the North. Nevertheless they must not fancy Votan a mere nobody. All the accounts, pictures, and representations of him lithographed (as they were found) in stone, show us a warrior of early times resembling such as Persepolis, as Thebes, and other ancient monuments exhibit. No doubt he was one of the demigods of Mexican history; but as for being the grandson of Noah, or even of Hercules Tyrius, and playing the part of an Anson, Cook, or Captain Parry somewhere about the year One, we do not attach the slightest degree of credit to the fact.

Several singular prints illustrate Dr. Cabrera's opposite opinion, but for want of proper references to them the whole work is obscure, and in parts altogether unintelligible. The printers too have done their duty carelessly.

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Art. IV. Description of the Ruins of an Ancient City, discovered near Palenque, in the Kingdom of Guatemala, in Spanish America: translated from the Original Manuscript Report of Captain Don Antonio del Rio, followed by a Critical Investigation and Research into the History of the Americas. By Doctor Paul Felix Cabrera, of the city of New Gautemala. 4to. pp. xiv, 128. (17 plates.) Price 1 l. 8 s. London. 1822.

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[pp. 555-56]



TOPOGRAPHY.

[ 18-19 ]

St. Bartholomew de los Llanos is also a very large village; it has two churches, and the population, including that of some contiguous cultivated possessions, amounts to 7410 souls.

St. Domingo Comitan, is the residence of the deputy-intendant of the province, and celebrated for its commerce; there is a good convent of the Dominicans; with the inhabitants of some neighbouring plantations the population amounts to 6815 persons.

St. Jacinto Ocosingo, chief place of the province of Tzendales, has more than 3000 inhabitants.

St. Domingo Palenque a village in the province of Tzendales, on the borders of the intendancies of Ciudad Real and Yucatan. It is the head of a curacy; in a wild and salubrious climate, but very thinly inhabited, and now celebrated from having within its jurisdiction the vestiges of a very opulent city, which has been named Ciudad del Palenque; doubtless, formerly the capital of an empire whose history no longer exists. This metropolis, -- like another Herculaneum, notindeed overwhelmed by the torrent of another Vesuvius, but concealed for ages in the midst of a vast desert, -- remained unknown until the middle of the eighteenth century, when some Spaniards having penetrated the dreary solitude, found themselves, to their great astonishment, within sight of the remains of what once had been a superb city, of six leagues in circumference; the solidity of its edifices, the stateliness of its palaces, and the magnificence of its public works, were not surpassed in importance by its vast extent; temples, altars, deities, sculptures, and monumental stones, bear testimony to its great antiquity. The hieroglyphics, symbols, and emblems, which have been discovered in the temples, bear so strong a resemblance to those of the Egyptians, as to encourage the supposition that a colony of that nation may have founded the city of Palenque, or Culhuacan. The same opinion may be formed respecting that of Tulha, the ruins of which are still to be seen near the village of Ocosingo in the same district. ...

[ 207-209 ]




CHAP. IX.

Of the Southern Provinces of Guatemala.

THE  PROVINCE  AND  INTENDANCY  OF  CIUDAD
REAL  DE  CHIAPA.

The native authors do not agree in their accounts of the origin of the Indians of this district. Antonio de Remesal, in his History of the Province of St. Vincent de Chiapa and Guatemala, (lib. 5, cap. 13,) positively asserts, that the people of Chiapa originally came from the province of Nicaragua. The Quiche; manuscript, already spoken of, says, that the Quelenes and Chapanecos are descendants of a brother of King Nimaquiche, who accompanied him from the city of Tula. Nunez de la Vega, bishop of Chiapa, in the preface to his Diocesan Constitutions, states, that he met with certain calendars in the language of these Indians, in which mention was made of 20 lords, or heads of families, from whom it appears this people derived their origin. Their names were Ninus, or Mox, Ygh, Votan, Ghanan, Abagh, Tox, Moxic, Lambat, Molo, or Mulu, Elab, Batz, Evob, Been, Hix, Tziquin, Chabin, Chic, Chinax, Cahogh, and Aghual. Of all these magnates, Votan seems to have been the most celebrated personage, as a separate work is devoted to his particular history. In this he is said to have seen the great wall (by which the tower of Babel is meant) that was built by order of his grandfather Noe, from the earth to the sky; and that, at this place, to every people a different language was given. It farther says, that Votan was the first person whom God sent to this country, to divide the lands, and apportion them among the Indians; and adds, that Votan was at Huehueta, a town of Soconusco, where he introduced Dantas, and concealed a treasure. This treasure was discovered in a cave by Nunez de la Vega; it consisted of some earthen jars, on which were represented figures of the ancient Gentile Indians. If credit be given to the manuscripts, it follows that we must consider these regions to have been peopled shortly after the deluge; since Votan, who was at Babel when they were building the tower, and the human race was dispersed and separated by different languages, was one of the founders of the Indian population. By parity of reasoning we must also admit, that the languages of these provinces are some of the primitive dialects, into which the Almighty divided the language of the post-diluvian patriarchs. From the same cause we shall be led to believe, that the first inhabitants of America did not, according to the most generally received opinion, arrive at it by way of the straits of Anian; for had that been the fact, many years, and many generations, must have passed away before they could have extended thence into these regions under the torrid zone, at a distance so immense from the straits.

One fact, however, is beyond controversy, viz. that this province was inhabited by a powerful and polished people, who maintained an intercourse with the Egyptians, as the sumptuous cities of Culhuacan and Tulha, vestiges of which yet remain near the towns of Palenque and Ocosingo, evidently demonstrate. In the first, some remaining buildings are objects of admiration, and afford sufficient evidence that Culhuacan once rivalled in magnificence the most celebrated capitals of the old world. Stately temples, in which many hieroglyphics, symbols, devices, and traces of fabulous mythology, have resisted the effect of time: portions of superb palaces still remain; and an aqueduct, of sufficient dimensions for a man to walk upright in, yet exists almost entire. Previous, however, to the arrival of the Spaniards, this province had so much declined from its ancient splendour, that they found neither inhabited city nor building worthy of their attention, nor civilization or polity in the inhabitants.

Remesal, continuing the history of the Chapanecos from the place before cited, says, that the Indians who had migrated from Nicaragua, determined upon remaining on the lands of Chiapa, and made choice of a steep mountain with a rocky summit, near the margin of a river, and of very difficult access, on which they settled their colony; there they fortified themselves as strongly as they could, resolving never to submit to the dominion of the Mexicans. When the empire of the latter was overthrown, the Indians of Chiapa, in the name of themselves, and of the nations of the Zoques, Celtales, and Quelenes, whom they had brought under their subjection by force, made an offer to Cortes of acknowledging themselves vassals of the king of Castile. The historian does not name the person who was deputed by Cortes to receive this homage; but he says the natives were soon disgusted by the conduct of the Spaniards, and revolted from their new allegiance in 1524. As soon as intelligence of this insurrection was brought to Cortes, he detached Diego de Mazariegos, with 150 soldiers and 40 horses, to quell it. The expedition was joined by many principal persons, who wished to withdraw from the disunion which had then commenced in Mexico, and by a great number of Mexican and Tlascaltecan Indians. Mazariegos, by his prudence and moderation, easily and speedily persuaded the Chapanecos to submit; and immediately returned to Mexico, but with the design of coming back to settle in this province, to prevent future insubordination. During his absence, the Chapanecos again became refractory, and the affairs of the Spaniards were placed in a situation much worse than they were during the first tumult.

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, an author of veracity and candour, narrates the events of this conquest...

[ 19-21 ]

... On the south of Lake Ontario, are two alluvial formations, of which the most recent is north of the ridge road. No forts have been discovered on it, although many have been observed south of the mountain ridge. The non-existence of forts on the secondary or primary alluvial formations of Lake Ontario, is a strong circumstance, from which the remote antiquity of those on the highlands to the south may be deduced; because, if they had been erected after the first or last retreat of the lake, they would undoubtedly have been made on them as most convenient, and best adapted for all military, civil, and domestic purposes.

These remains of art may be viewed as connecting links of a great chain, which extends beyond the confines of our state, and becomes more magnificent and curious as we recede from the northern lakes, pass through Ohio into the great vale of the Mississippi, thence to the Gulf of Mexico, through Texas into New Mexico and South America. In this vast range of more than three thousand miles, these monuments of ancient skill gradually become more remarkable for their number, magnitude, and interesting variety, until we are lost in admiration and astonishment, to find, as Baron Humboldt informs us, in a world which we call new, ancient institutions, religious ideas, and forms of edifices, similar to those of Asia, which there seem to go back to the dawn of civilization.

Over the great secondary region of the Ohio, are the ruins of what once were forts, cemeteries, temples, altars, camps, towns, villages, race-grounds and other places of amusement, habitations of chieftains, videttes, watch-towers, and monuments.

It is, says Mr. Atwater, nothing but one vast cemetery of the beings of the beings of past ages. Man and his works, the mammoth, tropical animals, the cassia tree and other tropical plants, are here reposing together in the same formation. By what catastrophe they were overwhelmed and buried in the same strata, it would be impossible to say, unless it was by that of the general deluge.

In the valley of the Mississippi, the monuments of buried nations are unsurpassed in magnitude and melancholy grandeur by any in North America. Here cities have been traced. similar to those of ancient Mexico, once containing hundreds of thousands of souls. Here are to be seen thousands of tumuli, some a hundred feet high, others many hundred feet in circumference, the places of their sepulchre, their worship, and perhaps of their defence. Similar mounds are scattered throughout the continent, from the shores of the Pacific into the interior of our state, as far as Black river, and from the lakes to South America.

There is one class of antiquities which present themselves on digging from thirty to fifty feet below the surface of the ground. They occur in the form of firebrands split wood, ashes, coals, and occasionally tools and utensils, buried to these depths by the alluvion. They have been observed (as Dr. Mitchell says he was informed) in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and elsewhere. When facts of this description, so curious for the inquisitive geologist and historian, shall have been collected and methodized, light may possibly be shed upon the remote Pelasgians, and upon the traditionary Atlantides.

Philosophers and antiquaries concur in opinion, that these remains of art evince the remote existence of nations far more civilized than the indigenes of the present race; than, at least, of any known tribes of North America.

The antiquities of this state are, in the opinion of Mr. Clinton, demonstrative evidence of the existence of a vast population settled in towns, defended by forts, cultivating agriculture, and more advanced in civilization than the nations which have inhabited the same countries since the European discovery.

It is in reference to the stupendous and curious works of art, and not to mere mounds, that this coincidence in opinion appears. Mounds may indicate a race different indeed from the present, without evidencing any extraordinary advancement in improvement. Serving as sepulchres and altars, whereupon the officiating priests could be seen by the surrounding worshippers, they might be traced from Wales, across the Russian empire, to our continent, and from the shores of the Pacific to the eastern end of lake Ontario....


The inquiries now arise: -- Who erected these works? Whence originated these wonderful people? Were they the primitive ancestors of the indigenes of our state? What is the story of their first migration and settlements; their progress from rudeness to comparative refinement; their retrogression into barbarism? What terrible disasters precipitated their ruin, exterminated their national existence, and blotted out their name, perhaps for ever? In reply -- while there are a few remnants of tradition to guide inquiry, and volumes of conjecturers to bewilder, not one authentic record remains of even the name of any of these populous and powerful nations.

In the revolutions of other people, in the downfall of other empires, relics are found, spots visited, architectural ruins traced, which history, or poetry, or mythological fable has identified with the fame and fate of the nation, or of some hero, statesman, philosopher, poet, orator, or artist, who was its ornament, and who reflected glory upon the age in which he flourished.

The classic remains of Greece and Italy, the venerable relics of Carthagenian and Egyptian antiquity, the spot where Ilium towered, and the ground over which were strewed the remains of Asia Minor, are associated with the reminiscences painfully pleasing, but memorably instructive and impressive....

But who can trace amid the ruins of the temples, and groves, and fortifications, and once flourishing seats of the aborigines, the rise, progress, and decline of a single nation, tribe, or once celebrated individual, as distinguishable from the common mass of millions, who have been swallowed into the abyss of successive ages? Where are their sages, their heroes, their politicians, their orators, their poets, their artists, their historians? All, all are covered by a pall, and invested with a sleep, more impenetrable and profound than the total darkness and deep slumber of the middle ages!

Whatever has survived in the shape of tradition, deserves to be recorded....

72.            Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins.            [Part 1.

§ 14.

Mr. Jefferson was of opinion that emigrants might have easily passed from the north-east of Asia, or north-west of Europe into America; but he considered the red Americans more ancient than those of Asia, upon the assumption that radical changes of language among the former have taken place in greater numbers, than they have among the latter. *

Some philosophers, considering this continent coexistent with that of Asia, are not more willing to yield to the latter any claim to remote antiquity over the former, then they are to Europe a pretension to physical superiority, so arrogantly maintained by Du Pauw and Buffon, but so ably refuted by Mr. Jefferson and the Abbe Clavigero.

We hereto fore observed that Baron Humboldt (54) was astonished to find in the New World, so called, institutions, religious ideas, and edifaces, flourishing in the fifteenth century, which in Asia indicated the dawn of civilization. Abbe Clavigero (55) thought the first American people descended from different families after the confusion of tongues, and that the language and customs of the Asiatics will in vain be examined for the origin of the people of the New World. It is his belief that there has been an equinoctial union of America and Africa, as well as a former connexion at the north with Asia and Europe.

§ 15.

Siquenza (whose opinion was adopted by Bishop Huet) supposed that the Mexicans belonged to the posterity of Naphtuhim, and that their ancestors left Egypt not long after the confusion of tongues, and travelled towards America. This is a conjecture which Abbe Clavigero considers well supported, but not sufficiently sustained to be pronounced a truth.

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* Notes on Virginia. See Dr. Jarvis's Discourse, note C. in Vol. III, N. Y. Hist. Coll. p. 227-228.

§ 15.]                           Romans -- Africans -- Votan.                           73.

The ruins of an ancient city near Palenque, in the province of Chiapa, and kingdom of Guatemala, in Spanish America, are described as exhibiting the remains of magnificent edifaces, temples, towers, aqueducts, statues, hieroglyphics, and unknown characters. This city (since called the Palencian city) was first discovered by Captain Antonio Del Rio, in 1787. He says in his report, * that the town appears to have been seven or eight leagues in length, and at least half a league in breadth; that from a Romish similarity in location, in that of a subterranean stone aquaduct, and from certain figures in Stucco, he thought that an intercourse once existed between the original natives and Romans. The Palencian edifices are of very remote antiquity, having been buried for many ages in the impenetrable thickets covering the mountains, and unknown to the historians of the new world.

Among the few historical works that escaped the flames of the Spanish conquerors, (who destroyed most of the memorials of the natives) was an ancient narrative, which is said to have fallen into the hands of the bishop of Chiapa, who refers to it in his Diocesan Constitution, printed at Rome, 1702. This was the narrative of Votan, which it is conjectured by Doct. Cabrera, of New Guatemala, † may still be extant. A copy (as Doct. C. believes) of the original, in hieroglyphics, (taken soon after the conquest) was communicated to him in a memior from a learned friend.

From an interpretation of this copy of the hieroglyphic narrative of Votan, he is made to say, that he conducted seven families from Valum Votan to this continent, and assigned lands to them; that he is the third of the Votans; that having determined to travel till he arrived at the root of heaven, in

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* See Description of the Ruins of an Ancient City, &c. from the MS of Don Antonio del Rio, and Teatro Critico Americano, or Critical Investigation, &c. into the history of the Americans, by Doct. Paul Felix Cabrera, Lond. 1822.

† Ib. Descrip. of Ruins, &c.

74.            Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins.            [Part 1.

order to discover his relations, the Culebreas, * and make himself known to them, he made four voyages to Chivim; that he arrived in Spain, and went to Rome; that he saw the great house of God building, &c.

According to Doctor Cabrera's hypothesis, the figures and deities of the Palacian city, and particularly the hieroglyphics, are Egyptian. A maritime communication existed between the American and African continents, in the very remotest ages of antiquity. The grandfather of Votan was a Hivite, originally of Tripoli, in Syria, (of a nation famous for having produced Cadmus) and was the first populator of the New World. That Votan, his grandson, made four voyages to the old continent, and landed at Tripoli. The earliest inhabitants consequently came from the east to America, proceeded from its eastern part to the northward, and again descended. At any rate, this, according to Dr. Cabrara, is the solution of the grand historical problem, so far as it regards the first peopling of the countries bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, and islands adjacent. He admits, that from various accidents since the introduction of the art of navigation, it is probable that many other families, besides those conducted hither by Votan, may have been conveyed to different parts of America and formed settlements.

Among the ruins of the Palacian city, were found several figures and idols. Agreeably to the Doctor's interpretation of these figures, Votan is represented thereon as on both continents, with an historical event, the memory of which he was desirous of transmitting to future ages. His voyages to, and return from, the old continent, are also depicted. One of the idols, bearing a mitre or cap, with bull's horns, and found in the temple of the city, is the Osiris, and another, the Isis of the Egyptians. These transmarine deities were known also to the Greeks, Romans, and Phoenicians.

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* How striking are these incidents, compared with those related of Madoc! See p. 54, and note 22. Are the words Valum Votan, Culebras, Chivim, &c. of Welsh etymology?

§ 15.]                                             Votan.                                            75.

In order to sustain his conclusion, the Doctor is forced to enter upon a train of bold conjecture. The speeches of Montezuma, (who has already been claimed as the descendant of Madoc by his advocates) to Cortes, on his submission to the domination of Charles V, and his address to the chiefs and caciques, are supposed to refer to the arrival and departure of Votan.

In the range of his conjectures, while attempting to trace the affinity of Votan's grandfather with the ancient Hivites, their migration to Egypt, and the antiquity of Votan's voyage, and those of his grandson, the Doctor enters learnedly into ancient mythology, and lays much stress upon the opinion of the benedictine Calmet, in his commentary on the Old Testament, and upon Hornius, as cited by Calmet.

Accordingly, on the ingress of the Hebrews into Palestine, and in consequence of the Hebrew wars, the Canaanites, who were expelled by Joshua and the judges, fled into Egypt, persued their course to the remotest regions of �frica, having occupied its coasts gradually, as they were oppressed by the Hebrew wars, (though many of the Hivites abandoned their dwellings before Joshua entered Palestine;) that these colonies existed prior to the Trojan was, (the era of which is 240 years after the death of Joshua) became Greeks returning thence, found that every part of the coast of Africa where they landed, had been already peopled by the Phoenicians; that on this point, Greek and Latin writers agree, according to the testimony of Bochart, in his work entitled Canaan, and of Hornius, on the origin of the people of America, lib. 2, cap. 3, 4, quoted by Calmet. Hence the foundation of the first colony in America, by the grandfather of Votan. Hornius, supported by the authority of Strabo, affirms, as certain, that voyages from Africa and Spain into the Atlantic Ocean, were both frequent and celebrated, adding, from Strabo, that Eudoxius, sailing from the Arabian gulf to Ethiopia and India, found the prow of a ship that had been wrecked, which, from having the head of a horse carved on it, he knew belonged to a Phoenician bark, and some Gaditani merchents declared it

76.            Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins.            [Part 1.

to have been a fishing vessel. Laertius relates nearly the same circumstance. Hornius says, that in very remote ages, three voyages were made to America, the first by Atlantes, or descendants of Atlas, who gave his name to the ocean, and the islands, Alantides: this name Plato appears to have learned from the Egyptian priests, the general custodes of antiquity. The secod voyage, mentioned by Hornius, is given on the authority of Diodorus Siculus, lib. 5, cap. 19, where he says, the Phoenicians, having passed the columns of Hercules, and impelled by the violence of the winds, abandoned themselves to its fury; and after experiencing many tempests; were driven upon an island in the Atlantic Ocean, distant many days sail to the westward of the coast of Lybia. This island, upon which were large buildings, had a fertile soil, and navigable rivers. The report of this discovery soon spread among the Carthaginians and Romans, the former being harrased by the wars of the latter, and the people of Mauritania, sent a colony to that island with great secrecy, that, in the event of being overcome by their enemies, they might possess a place of retreat.

But acccording to Doct. Cabrera, Votan's ancestors must have emigrated prior to this second voyage of the Phoenicians, for the latter found houses, &c. and anterior to the Punic wars.

The other voyage in the Atlantic, spoken of by Calmet, was anterior to the preceeding, and is that attributed to Hercules, who is the supposed author of the Gaditanian columns, and whom Calleo ranks as contemporary with Moses, and chief of the Canaanites, who left Palestine on the invasion of Joshua. The Hivites founded the kingdom of Tyre. Sallus affirms, that the soldiers of Hercules Tyrius, and their wives, spoke the African language. Diodorus asserts, that one Hercules navigated the whole circuit of the earth, and built the city of Alecta in Septimania. From what Doct. Cabrera considers an irrefragable body of evidence, founded upon the coincidence of the memorials of writers of the old continent,

§ 16.]                                             Votan.                                            77.

Votan, the grandson of Hercules, and author of the narrative, was the third of his race, and flourished between three and four hundred years before the Christian era. The Romans and Carthaginians derived their first knowledge of America from Votan himself, on his return to the old continent, and his visit to Rome; and the first Carthaginian colony was sent previous to the first Punic war, and after the information thus communicated.

This hypothesis is not, it seems, founded upon that of an ancient union of the two continents.

§ 16.

So formidable, however, have been the interposing difficulties, as viewed by the learned, in arriving at any certainty when and whence came the first people of America, and how and when animals first appeared there, * that many suppose, (for instance, Acosta, Grotius, Buffon, and Abbe Clavigero,) that this continent was once connected with the old continents, and by some great convulsion, the communications have been destroyed. There cannot be any doubt that our planet has

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* See Barton'd Views. Reese's New Cyclop.

78.            Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins.            [Part 1.

been subject to great vicissitudes since the deluge. Lands over which ships once sailed, are now the seats of cultivation; lands which were formerly cultivated, are now covered by water. Earthquakes have swallowed some lands, subterraneous fires have thrown up others. Rivers have formed new soil with their mud; the sea has retreated from shores and lengthened the land; or advancing, diminished it, or separated territories which were united, and formed new straits and gulfs. Pliny, Seneca, Diodorus, and Strabo, report a great many instances of such vicissitudes. According to them, Spain and Africa were united, and by a violent irruption of the ocean upon the land between the mountains Abyla and Calpe, that communication was broken, and the Mediterranean sea formed. Sicily had been united to the continent with Naples, and Eubes, (the Black sea,) to Boeotia. The people of Ceylon have a tradition that an irruption of the sea separated their island from the peninsula of India; so those of Malabar, with respect to the isles of Malvidia; and by the Malayans with respect to Sumatra. (56) It is certain, says the Count de Buffon, that in Ceylon the earth has lost by the sea thirty or forty leagues, while Tongres, a place in the low countries, has gained thirty leagues of land from the sea. The northern part of Egypt owes its existence to the innundation of the Nile. The earth which this river has brought from the inland countries of Africa, and deposited in its innundations, has formed a soil more than twenty-five cubits of depth. * In like manner, adds the above author, the province of the Yellow river in China, and that of Louisiana, have been formed from the mud of rivers. The peninsula of Yucatan, in America, no doubt was once the bed of the sea. In the channel of the Bahama, indications appear of a former existing union of Cuba with Florida. In the strait which separates America from Asia, are many islands, which probably were the mountains belonging to that tract of land, which we suppose to have been swallowed by earthquakes, a probability

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* Ali Bey maintains (in his travels) that the great African desert was once an ocean.

§ 16.]                                 Union of Continents.                                79.

strengthened by the knowledge we have of the multitude of volcanos in the peninsula of Kamschatka. The sinking of that land, and the separation of the two continents, however, is imagined to have been occasioned by those great and extraordinary earthquakes mentioned in the history of the Americans, which formed an era almost as memorable as that of the deluge. (57) Abbe Clavigero is pursuaded that there was an ancient union between the equinoctial countries of America and those of Africa, and a united continuation of the northern countries of America with those of Europe or Asia; the latter affording a passage for beasts of cold climes, the former for quadrupeds and reptiles peculiar to hot climes. He also believes that there was formerly a great tract of land, which united the now most eastern part of Brazil to the most western part of Africa, and that all that space of land may have been sunk by some violent earthquakes, leaving only some traces of it in the isles of Cape de Verd, Fernando de Norona, Ascension, St. Matthew, and others, and the many sand-banks discovered by different navigators, and particularly by De Bauche, who sounded the sea with particular care and exactness. Those islands and sand-banks may probably have been the highest parts of that sunken continent. It is also the belief of the Abbe Clavigero, that the most westerly part of America was formerly united by means of a smaller continent to the most easterly part of Tartary, and perhaps America was united also by Greenland with the northern countries of Europe. Dr. Foster entertained an opinion, which however he afterwards questioned, that Friesland, (larger according to Hakluyt than Ireland) to which the Venetian Zenos in the beginning of the fourteenth century proceeded, and thence advantured at sea for years in the service of Sichmi, the enterprising chief of the island, was situated between Iceland and Greenland, and has since been swallowed by the sea in a great earthquake. Dr. Belknap * coincided in this opinion...

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* American Biog. V. I. p. 74.

[ 425-429 ]



Review  of  Books.
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Essay on Dr. Young's and M. Champollion's Phonetic System of Hieroglyphics, with some additional Discoveries, &c., by which it may be aplied to decypher the names of the Ancient Kings of Egypt and Ethopia. By H. Salt, Esq., His Britannic Majesty's Consul-General in Egypt. London, 1825. 8vo.

One great distinction between the English and French schools of Egyptian research is, that the latter, elevated by the sublimity of the subject, as well as prompted by national character, have been inclined to impute too exorbitant an antiquity to Egyptian monuments; whereas the former, following the more modest footsteps of Mr. W. HamHton, and the colder genius of their country, have been induced to consider many of those monuments capable of illustration by comparison with Greek and Roman inscriptions, and are disposed to infer their comparatively recent origin. The difference is very great, -- one carrying back the date of certain Egyptian monuments to the period succeeding the flood; the other limiting their antiquity to a period immediately preceding and succeeding the Christian aera. In our view, both schools are wrong: ultraism, in fact, is always wrong. In medio tutissimus ibis. In this, as in every thing else, the golden mean is most likely to be nearest the truth.

The same distinction reigns throughout the rival pretensions of Dr. Young and M. Champollion. Dr. Young, in his phonetic illustration of proper names, has, with one or two exceptions, stopped at the names of the Greek and Roman potentates of Egypt M. Champollion has carried his system of phonetic interpretation into the remotest dynasties of Egypt. So, in valuing the antiquity of Belzoni's excavation, Dr. Young has brought down the date to the period of a prince living about 500 years before the Christian aera; and committed the mistake of burying one of the Saite dynasty, at Thebes. M. Champollion has referred the date to the remote ages of Memnon and Sesostris, and with greater probability, as it will be shewn; since the latter were of the Diospolite dynasty of the Egyptian kings, and were certainly buried within the vicinity of the above excavation at Thebes. In the same spirit, Dr. Young ridicules the metaphysical interpretation of his predecessors, Zoega, Palin, Pauw, and especially Kircher. Having hitherto met with nothing but fulsome triumphal inscriptions, or deeds for the conveyance of land, he is inclined to rate the far-famed "Egyptian wisdom" very low; to entertain great doubts that Plato, Pythagoras, and the Greek philosophers, derived any "solid knowledge" from Egyptians; to presume that they had neither astronomical, nor geometrical records; and to join in the contempt and ridicule which Juvenal scatters upon them. M. Champollion, and the French Savant, on the contrary, are inclined to infer that, next to the Hebrew scriptures, the hieroglyphics will, when decyphered, be found to contain the most important records of man's origin and progressive civilization which have ever been submitted to the world.

As Mr. Salt, in the preface to his work, recording the additions he has made to the discoveries of Dr. Young and M. Champollion, states that he presumes the reader to be familiar with the state of Egyptian inquiry at the point of time where he takes up the thread of it; it will be necessary, for a correct appreciation of his labours, and those of his English and French allies, to give
[426]
a succinct detail of the progress and condition of Egyptian research, as effected by modern inquirers, up to the present time.

Father Kircher's six volumes contain some faithful though inelegant representations of such Egyptian monuments as had, before his days, been brought to Europe. Prepossessed with the idea that they contained the most profound and mysterious doctrines of philosophy, theology, and metaphysics, he adapts his system to the hieroglyphics, instead of deriving it from them. It is a petitio principii throughout. Any given modern discovery or theory in physics, or metaphysics, might, upon his principle, be discovered in certain hieroglyphics; and all human invention be shifted on the "Atlantean shoulders" of Egyptian wisdom. However, the "learned visionary," as Warburton calls him, has been content with discovering among the sculptured archives of the vanished kingdom of the Pharoahs, the theological mysteries of the church, handed down from Adam to Ham, and from him to the Egyptians. The original inscriptions, according to him, are due either to Seth, Enoch, or Mizraim; and this miracle attends his interpretation -- that it has the advantage of being able to succeed equally well, whether he begins at the end of any series of figures, or takes Rabelais's advice, and "begins at the beginning."

One ridiculous circumstance, connected with the learned Jesuit's interpretation is, that the Pamphilian and Barberinian obelisks, on both of which he has expended a folio of research, have been since discovered to be spurious imitations of the Egyptian style, consisting of emblems put together in a manner entirely arbitrary, and sculptured by Roman artists. It is right, however, that justice should be done to Kircher. In his metaphysical interpretation of the Egyptian monuments, he is supported by the whole body of the latter Platonists. It is still more certain, and more "germane to the matter," though neither M. Champollion nor Dr. Young has acknowledged the prior claim, that the first, discoveries in phonetic illustration of names were made by him. This, a reference to his Prodromus Copticus will prove: it is true, that he gave a syllabic power, rather than an initial, to his phonetic signs; but this is the very charge that M. Champollion brings against Dr. Young. Thus, if Kircher discovered in the cognominal tablet over an Egyptian personage a pomegranate, he would call the: name of the individual Erman, that being the Coptic name for the sign; and this, on the principle of modern heraldry, which represents a man's name in the same manner; namely, a hammer or mallet for the Mallets; a lion for the Lyons, &c. So Dr. Young, in the case of Berenice, interprets the first symbol -- a basket, syllabically, ber; while M. Champollion gives it only the initial power of the consonant B. It is our opinion, that, notwithstanding Dr. Young is inclined to recant on this point, both he and Kircher will be found to be in many cases right; and the more so, because we are convinced that modern heraldry is a fragment of the hieroglyphical language, and warrants the syllabic interpretation. That this was partly the case, in enchorial representations of proper names, ia proved by instances adduced by Dr. Young himself; thus, in the names Amonrasonther and Amonorytius,* the first part of each name is written syllabically, by means of the symbol of the god Amon ; the latter phonetically, or alphabetically.

The Chevalier Palin, in his mode of interpreting the hieroglyphics, is still more open to ridicule than the Jesuit Kircher. Instead of beginning at the commencement or the end, he, in one instance, by way of variety, begins in the middle; and instead of discovering that the hieroglyphics were executed
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by the chisel of Enoch or the graving tool of Seth, he finds that Hebrew translations of many of the Egyptian roils of papyrus are to be found in the Bible, under the title of the "Psalms of David!" De Pauw follows a similar track, apprizing us that we have nothing to do but to translate the Psalms of David into Chinese, and to write them in the ancient character of that language, in order to reproduce the Egyptian papyri that were found with the mummies! Zoega is more frank; for, after encumbering the field of letters with his ponderous volume on the obelisks, and after collecting all that was really on record, he very candidly confesses that the sum and substance of the whole amount to nothing! Baron Humboldt's theory of the analogy between the Egyptian and Mexican monuments is deeply interesting and ingenious; but it does not bear on the subject of inquiry into the phonetic system. Del Rio's work on the Ruined Palencian City in Guatemala is more to the purpose. The tablets over the heads of Mexican heroes, represented in the plates, demonstrate that the Mexican mode of distinguishing names was generally similar to that of the Egyptians; it was, however, syllabic or heraldic -- as in the instance of Acamapolzin, whose device was a hand grasping reeds, which the name signifies; and Chimalpoca, the cognominal symbol being a shield emitting smoke, which the name also implies.

We have already done justice to Kircher respecting his prior claim to the phonetic system. A similar justice is due to our own countryman Warburton, who, in his "Divine Legation," has entirely anticipated Champollion. We should rather say that Champollion has borrowed his system without acknowledging it. Warburton's theory is this: the first kind of writing consisted in the pictures of things (these are what M. Champollion calls anaglyphs); but the bulk of such memorials rendering abridgment indispensable, necessity introduced the system of hieroglyphics, which effected its purpose by three ways: 1st. By substituting a circumstance for the whole of an event; 2d. by substituting simple marks for the outlines of the pictures, which may be called the running hand of hieroglyphics; 3d. by what Clemens Alexandrinus calls the epistolographic method, from whence there is an easy transition to the alphabet. Such is the borrowed theory of Champollion. With regard even to the discovery of the phonetic signs or alphabet, Warburton, in the same work, infers the derivation of alphabets, as M. Champollion does, from hieroglyphics, and proves it in the same way, viz. by the retention of the symbolic names for each sign or letter. The description of Clemens Alexandrinus is to the same effect; the 1st arrangement of the Egyptian letters was the epistolographic, which was peculiar to the people; 2d, the hieratic, which was peculiar to the priests; and 3d, the hieroglyphic, which was again subdivided into kyriologic, or phonetic, and symbolic. Thus the symbolic and the phonetic characters were used contemporaneously: and the symbolic letters were again subdivided into 1st, the imitative; 2d, the tropical, or figurative (including anaglyphs); and 3d, the enigmatical.

The more, therefore, we sift the matter, the more we shall be convinced that the phonetic system is not a modern discovery. Two more circumstances will complete the proof of bad faith or singular ignorance in the pretended discoverers: 1st. the Chinese language (and it has always been stated by those who have employed themselves upon it) has possessed a phonetic system, for the purpose of representing the sounds of names, from time immemorial; and 2d, the Hebrew alphabet (a fact on which Kircher founded his syllabical phonetic process) consists even now of the fragments of phonetic signs, which retain their old names, as aleph, a bird; beth, a house; gimel
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a camel. Many of these Hebrew phonetic signs are the ???? ?? those composing Dr. Young's phonetic alphabet. The fact is, that the Hebrew language might be entirely written to this day in phonetic symbols, as well as in alphabetical characters.

Having thus reduced the pretended modern discovery of the phonetic system to its real value, the road is clear for deciding between the rival pretensions of Dr. Young and Champollion, as to which of them was the first to apply the system to the interpretation of sculptured proper names. On fair consideration, we do not hesitate to award the palm, such as it is, to Dr. Young. M. Champollion, with some periphrasis, appears to admit that Dr. Young first interpreted the names of Ptolemy and Berenice: but he attempts to subvert his claim by the allegation that the discovery was not scientifically made; and that Dr. Young has "mistakingly vitiated phonetic analysis," by giving a syllabic power, instead of initial, to the phonetic characters constituting the name. If the result of Dr. Young's process produced the true interpretation, it will be obvious that the objection does not invalidate Dr. Young's claim, and that fhe title of first interpreter of the name in question belongs to him. All that M. Champollion has done is improving on his suggestion, and following his clue.

Dr. Young, in his "Account of Some Recent Discoveries," has decyphered thé names of most of the deities, and many of the Greek and Roman rulers of Egypt, by the phonetic alphabet, and a great number of Egyptian proper names, written in the epistolograpbic character. To these, Champollion has added a considerable number of the Ptolomies and Caesars; and no less than thirty of the Pharaohs, which names, as he asserts, accord with the traditions of Manetho. But to Dr. Young belongs a merit which neither M. Champollion nor any other person can dispute with him; it consists in the substantial achievement of affixing a precise meaning to no le»s than 200 hieroglyphics. These interpretations we believe to be generally accurate, not less on account of the careful and experimental process employed in obtaining them (viz. that of comparing their local relations on the Rosetta stone with the enchorial and Greek characters), than from the internal evidence which their imitative form, as well as their combinations, supply. Thus we have a hatchet for God as a Creator; a hatchet, with the feminine symbol of an egg and a semi-circle, for goddess; two hatchets, with two nails signifying security, for Soteres or saviour gods. Here the plural number is expressed in the same manner as by the Chinese; repetition signifying plurality, and three characters an indefinite plurality: sometimes the latter qualifications are signified by two or three bars attached to the original characters. Again, day is composed of two characters; one representing the sun, the other splendour: illustrious, of two characters, one implying splendour, as before; and two legs signifying bearing: good is a guitar; whence the Platonic idea of music being the good: beneficent, or doing good, consists of a guitar and a patera, the latter implying bestowing, &c. &c. &c. Two other characters, proved by their locality on the Rosetta stone, are worth naming, because they show that the contempt generally thrown (and among others by Dr. Young himself) on ancient expounders of hieroglyphics, as Horus Apollo and Hermapion, is ill-deserved; one is the character of a goose for son, as Horus Apollo asserts; the other, that of a bull with an arm, and a hawk, for mighty Apollo -- as Hermapion signified when interpreting the first part of the Heliopolitan obelisk, according to the testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus.

The preceding detail brings down the history of Egyptian discovery to
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the status, in which Mr. Salt, in the work before us, takes it up. It is preceded by a dedication to the Right Hon. C. Yorke, and accompanied by some notes from the pen of Mr. Bankes, jun., who has also increased the value of the work by a lithographical engraving of that valuable document, the Genealogical Table of Abydos. In this publication, Mr. Salt declares himself to be a convert to the phonetic system, of which he first entertained doubts; since it "appeared to him a very vague and conjectural hypothesis." The proof which he now adduces of the "solidity of the basis on which it is founded," is indeed highly satisfactory, since it exhibits two persons, in two distant parts of the globe, without the slightest communication, coming by different modes of deduction to the same conclusion. Mr. Salt has added two new phonetic characters to Dr. Young's alphabet, viz. a pair of tongs and a beetle for D, T, or Th. To the previous collections of Roman emperors, he has added the names of Nero, Commodus, Adrian, Antoninus, and Domitian; he has, likewise, discovered a considerable number of names of the Pharoahs and their queens, some known to chronology, and some not: the most remarkable of the former are Thotkmosis, who, according to the conjoint testimony of Josephus, Manetho, and Charœmon, was the Pharoah who expelled the Jews from Egypt; and Misarte, who erected the obelisk now standing at Matarea. Among the Ethiopian kings appears the name of Tirhakah, who is mentioned in the Book of Kings; Sabaco, supposed to be the So of scripture; and Zerah. The name of Athurte, the princess who, according to Josephus, was daughter to Amenophis, and preserved Moses, is also among Mr. Salt's discoveries. The phonetic names of Rameses me Amun, and of his son Amenoph or Memnon, among the Diospolite kings, are, to our mind, perfectly established; that of Memnou is, in fact, taken from his celebrated vocal statue.

We are surprised to remark that Mr. Salt draws no inference from the propinquity of the phonetic name of Memnon to the phonetic characters composing the name of the Diospolite king to whom Belzoni's excavation appertained; nor does Mr. Bankes, though his Genealogical Table of Abydos completes the proof necessary to ascertain the personage. The above inference goes to subvert Dr. Young's theory, that it was the tomb of Psaramis, if, indeed, the fact of the whole of the dynasty of Psammis being Saites, and buried at Sais, ought not to have caused its rejection from the first. In two successive articles, published three years ago in the Album, on the subject of the tenant of Belzoni's tomb, the author of this paper maintained that it was Sethos, or Sesostris the Great, the son of Amenoph or Memnon. The opinion is now confirmed; 1st, by Mr. Bankes' Table of Abydos, wherein the name of the individual stands next in succession to that of Memnon; Sid, by the paternal coat of arms of Memnon, as exhibited by Mr. Salt, being coupled on the accompanying shield with the phonetic name of his son and successor throughout the excavation: the latter is the name absurdly assigned to Peammis. There can, therefore, be no doubt that Sesostris, the son of Amenoph, was buried in the magnificent alabaster sarcophagus now in Mr. Soane's possession. It is singular, that the sitting figure of Ptha, being the first phonetic character of the name of Memnon, is erased from the oval shield on the vocal statue ; but it remains in the excavation. Hence the name was originally Phamenoph, as the Egyptians told Pliny: who adds that the month Phamenoph was named after him. The erasure, therefore, which Mr. Salt found, in a great number of other instances, was, probably, made to distinguish the name of the month from the name of the individual. Pliny records
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another, remarkable circumstance ; that the adjacent Memnunium was a serapeum in which Sesostris was deified, as the sun or Serapis, under the name of Ismendes, or the producer of sound. Figures of Serapis appear on all sides of Belzoni's excavation. It was probably the sepulchral portion of the same serapeum; and the whole may have been identical with the palace and tomb of Osyniandes.

In one thing we cannot concur with Mr. Salt. Having confessed, in the first instance, that he entertained a prejudice against the phonetic system, he is hurried, by the usual zeal of conversion beyond due bounds, in expecting extravagant results from it. He does "noi hesitate to say" (such are his expressions) "that with a complete knowledge of Coptic a person will be able, by the aid of the phonetic system, to decypher whole inscriptions." In this he has abandoned the substantial and cautious ground of illustration taken by Dr. Young, to follow the "will-of-the-wisp" of M. Champollion's vague and migratory logic. Does Mr. Salt, then, think that the Egyptians, after all (instead of merely, expressing the sounds of names phonetically, which they were, compelled to do), expressed ideas also by the same process? What is this but saying that there was, strictly speaking, no hieroglyphical language at all; but that what we have hitherto called so was, in reality, a vague, indefinite and irregular alphabetical system? Clemens Alexandrinus, however, and all contemporary authors who have written on the subject, testify that this was not the case; that ideas, not sounds, were represented by the symbolical part of the language; and this Dr. Young has fully confirmed by those 200 well-established ideographical characters, to some of which we have adverted.

We believe that much may be done; but are sorry to chill speculation by expressing our decided opinion, that, generally speaking, the language sought to be interpreted is, from the very nature of things, uninterpretable. The Egyptians either had no dictionaries, or have left none: who, then, can possibly hope to interpret the infinite number of abstract signs for ideas, which the priests may have adopted from the influence of caprice, of scientific prejudice, or local customs; and which might have been, for the greatest part, arbitrary and conventional? Whoever pretends to this, may as well pretend to the power of evoking the Egyptian hierarchy from the dead. We are astonished how any man of the least reflection can yield his reason to the delusive charm of so improbable an interpretation. Some shallow and trivial meanderings from the mainstream of the ancient language may be traced -- some drops from the deep springs of the great source of language identified -- and some detached collections of its waters sounded and explored; but the head of the great volume of waters is, and must be, a "fountain sealed."

The collection of the phonetic names and hieroglyphical signs of the principal divinities, of which the remainder of Mr. Salt's work is made up, is not new; the characteristic crests or heraldic symbols of those divinities have been long familiar to the antiquarian. But the collection is useful, as contributive to a practical adaptation of the phonetic system, since Egyptian proper names are, in most cases, composed of the names of divinities: and nothing is more dearly established than the circumstance that, as in the hieroglyphical writing, it was customary to mingle the image of the deity among the phonetic characters designed to compose a similar, but human cognomen; so, in the epistolographic writing, it was usual to express a name in part phonetically, and in part hieroglyphically -- a circumstance which greatly enhances the difficulty of phonetic interpretation.

Premiums for Geographical Discoveries. -- There exists in Paris, a Geographical Society, which appears to have large funds, that are devoted to promote the science which gives its name to the Society. By a late arrival from Havre, we have received from M. L. Beront, a member of this Society, the programme of the premiums now offered for discoveries, together with a letter inviting us to aid, if we should see fit, the views of himself and colleagues, by making public in the United States such parts of the programme as relate to investigations on the continent. We cheerfully comply with the invitation, which will, perhaps be best understood by translating an extract from M. Beront's letter, and that portion of the proposals that concerns the Americans. Mr. Beront says, "among the investigations proposed are, two relative to America -- the first having for its object, to describe the interior of Guiana -- the other to give a more exact and detailed account than we yet possess, of the ruins of the ancient city of Palenque, situated in the Province of Guatemala.

"The inhabitants of the United states, having it more easily in their power than others to visit the countries near them, it would be equally for the interest of our society, and of the science we cultivate, that a translation of such portions of the programme as relates to these two objects, should be published in the journal committed to your charge. In so doing, you may count in advance upon the thanks of the society." &c. &c.

Translated from the Programme.

4th prize -- a gold medal of the value of 5000 ($1000) for a voyage of discovery to the interior of Guiana.

It is required that the unknown parts of French Guiana be reconnoitered, the position of the sources of the River Maroni be determined, and investigation extended as far as possible to the west, in the direction of the second parallel of north latitude, and in following the lone of separation between the waters of the Guianas and the Brazil.

The traveller must establish upon scientific principles the geographical positions, and the levels of the principal points, and bring back the materials for a new and exact map.

The Society desires that he should also collect vocabularies of the different tribes.

The premium is to be awarded in the first general meeting in 1829.

5th prize -- American Antiquities -- a gold medal of the value of 2400 ($480)

The following are the conditions of obtaining this premium:

A more exact and detailed description than we yet possess, of the ruins of the ancient city of Palenque, situated north-west of the village of St. Domingo Palenque, near the River Micol, in the state of Chiapa, if the former kingdom of Guatemala, and designated under the name of the Casas de Piedras, in the report addressed in 1787, to the King of Spain, by Antonio del Rio.

The author must give picturesque views of the monuments, with plans and sections of the principal details of their sculpture. The apparent connexion of these monuments, with others in Guatemala and Yucatan, make it desirable that the traveller should examine, if possible, the ancient Utalban, near Santa Cruz del Quiche, in the province of Solola, the ancient fortress of Mexico, and several similar ones; the ruins of Copan, in the State of Honduras; those of the Isle of Peten in the lagoon of Itza; upon the limits of Chiapa, Yucatan, and Verapaz, the ancient buildings situated in Yucatan, and 20 leagues south of Merida, between Mora-y-Ticul and the city of Noiacab, and finally the edifices in the neighborhood of the city of Mani, near the River Largartos.

The Bas reliefs, representing the adoration of a Cross such as that engraved in the work of Del Rio, will be sought after. It is important to ascertain the analogy between these different edifaces, regarded as the works of the same people and the same state of the arts. In relation to geographical matters, the society requires, 1st. particular maps of the cantons where these ruins are situated, together with topographical plans -- these maps must be made in the most exact manner. 2d. The absolute height above the sea, of the principal points. 3d. Remarks upon the physical condition and productions of the country.

The Society also requires some notice of the traditions relative to the people to whom the construction of these monuments is ascribed; with observations as to the manners and customs of the aborigines, and the Vocabularies of ancient idioms. Special enquiry will be made as to the tradition of the country respecting the age of these edifices, and particularly as to any proof, that figures drawn with a certain degree of correctness, were anterior to the conquest.

Finally the authors will collect all that is known respecting Votaw [sic - Votan?] or Wodaw of the inhabitants of Chiapa, a personage compared with Odin and Budda.

The memorial, maps and drawings, must be deposited at the bureau of the central commission before the 1st January, 1830.

Note 1: The exact date of this article remains undetermined: the text was transcribed from a reprint that appeared in the Sept. 28th issue of a Washington, D.C. newspaper, the Daily National Journal. A similar article also ran in the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post of Sept. 23rd. Additional information included in other, contemporary news reports was that the "Memoirs must be written in French, and sent (with the name of the authors, under a seal) to the President of the Society, Taranne Street, No. 12, Paris, in France," etc.

Note 2: Announcements, translated into in English, of an offering of this sort of prize, by the Geographical Society of Paris, appeared in the American popular press as early as 1825 -- see the Cincinnati Literary Gazette of Jun. 4, 1825 for one such report from the Geographical Society of Paris, offering prizes of four thousand francs each, for the best accounts on various subjects pertaining to American antiquities. A gold medal was offered at that time for the "best description of ancient American ruins," received in Paris, before the beginning of 1836. Evidently no specific mention was made of "Palenque" in the 1825 prize offering. For similar news of French prize offerings for new discoveries in American antiquities, see the New York Palmyra Reflector of Oct. 28, 1829.

Note 3: Although he was unable to journey to Guatamala to inspect "the Ruins of the Ancient city of Palenque," this notice of the French offer, published in the Saturday Evening Post, appears to have caught the eye of Prof. Constantine S. Rafinesque, lately arrived in Philadelphia from Lexington, Kentucky. See Rafinesque's letter, published in the Jan 13, 1827 issue of the Post..

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Remarks on the Ruins at Palenque, in Guatemala, and on the
Origin of the American Indians, By John Ranking, Esq.

These ruins are situated on a plain, named Palenque, in the province of Ciudad Real de Chiapa, near the borders of Guatemala and Yucatan, in north latitude, by Robertson's map, 17 degrees 30 minutes.

A description of this ancient city has been published in English, * translated from the manuscript of Captain Don Antonio del Rio, dated Palenque, 1787, accompanied with a critical investigation into the history of the ancient Americans, by Doctor Paul Felix Cabrera, of the city of New Guatemala, dated 1794. The following is a summary:

The king of Spain having ordered another examination of these ruins, Captain Del Rio proceeded to the site of the ancient city, which is called Casas de Piedras (stone houses) for the purpose of effectually clearing away the trees and copsewood which hid the principal building. With seventy-nine Indians and forty axes the wood was cut down in fifteen days, and was consumed in a general conflagration, which enabled the party to continue their operations with more facility. The pick-axes were reduced to three, and the iron crow-bars to seven; but, by dint of perseverance, all that was necessary to be done was effected, and, ultimately, there remained neither a window nor a doorway blocked up, nor a room, corridor, court, tower,

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* By H. Berthoud, Regents-Quadrant, and Suttaby & Co., Stationers-court, 4to, 1822, with seventeen plates. "The original manuscript of Captain del Rio, with the criticism of Dr. Cabrera, was found in the archives of New Guatemala, and is open for inspection at Mr. Berthoud' s." -- Prefatory Address.

136                       Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                      

nor subterranean passage, in which excavations were not effected two or three yards in depth.

There are fourteen stone houses situated upon a height, some more dilapidated than others, but many of their apartments being perfectly discernible. At the base of the highest mountain forming the ridge, there is a plain four hundred and fifty yards long and three hundred wide. In the centre, upon a mound twenty yards high, stands the largest structure that has yet been discovered, under which is a stone aqueduct of great solidity. It is surrounded by five other edifices on the north, four on the south, three on the east, and one on the south-west. In all directions fragments of other fallen buildings of the town are to be seen, extending along the mountain, that stretches east and west about three or four leagues either way.

Its breadth is little more than half a league at the point where the ruins terminate. The interior of the large building is in a rude and massive style of architecture, resembling the Gothic; the entrance, on the east, is by a portico, or corridor, three yards in width and thirty-six in length, supported by plain rectangular pillars, without bases or pedestals, upon which are square smooth stones, more than a foot thick, forming an architrave; while on the exterior superficies are stucco shields, the designs of three of which accompany this report, numbered 1, 2, 3. * Over these stones there is a plain rectangular block, five feet long and six broad, extending over two of the pillars. Medallions, or compartments in stucco, containing different devices of the same material, appear as decorations to the chambers; and from the vestiges of the heads which can still be traced, it is presumable that they were the busts of the kings or lords to whom the natives were subject. Between the medallions there is a range of windows the whole length of the wall, like niches; some are square, some in form of a Greek cross, and others, which complete the cross, are square, being about two feet high, and eight inches deep.

Beyond this corridor there is a square court, entered by a flight of seven steps. The north side is in ruins, but we may

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* These, and many other things described, are not represented upon the seventeen plates published, no more having been found with the manuscript; and those seventeen which accompany the quarto, have no numbers, or marks, whatever for reference, but are given just as they were received by the publisher.

                      Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                       137

see that it had a similar chamber and corridor with those on the east. The south side has only four small chambers, with nothing but two little windows, like those described above.

The western side corresponds to its opposite in all respects, except the variety of expression of the figures in stucco; these are much more rude and ridiculous than the others, and can only be attributed to the most uncultivated Indian capacity. The device is a mask with a crown and long beard, like that of a goat; under this are two Greek crosses, the one delineated in the other, as appears in Fig. 7. * Proceeding in the same direction, there is another court, somewhat similar to the last. Some pillars yet remain, on which are relievos, alluding to the sacrifice of some wretched Indian. I have transported from this chamber the stucco head of the sufferer, (Fig. 8.) and the foot and leg of the sacrificer, (Fig. 11.) There is a tower on the south side, (Fig. 12.); its height is sixteen yards, and to the four existing stories there has, perhaps, been a fifth with a cupola. These piles diminish in size, and are without ornament, yet the design is singular and ingenious. There is an interior tower, quite plain, with windows to give light to the steps by which you ascend to the summit. A solid body passes through the centre of the tower, from which the earth and stones slipped down, and prevented us from excavating more than three yards.

Behind the above four chambers, there are two others, larger, and well ornamented in the rude Indian style, and appear to have been oratories. Among the embellishments are some enamelled stuccos, (Figs. 13 and 14 ;) the Grecian heads represent sacred objects, to which they made their offerings, probably consisting of strings of jewels, as the attitudes denote. †

Beyond these oratories there are two apartments, each 27 yards long and three broad, containing nothing but an elliptical stone embedded in the wall, about a yard above the pavement, the height of it is one yard and a quarter, the breadth a yard. At the extremity of an apartment, on a level with the pavement, there is an aperture like a hatchway, two yards long, and more than one broad, leading to a subterranean passage, by a flight of steps,

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* Figure is used throughout the Spanish account for Plate.

† Montezuma and Cortez put necklaces on each other; it is a Mongul, or Mogul custom, for these two spellings are used by all writers indifferently.

138                       Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                      

which has, at a regular distance, flats or landings, each having its respective doorway, ornamented in front like Fig. 18. Fig. 19 represents another entrance, and there is a third buried beneath heaps of rubbish. In another of the many entrances, there was a stone, (No. 7,) which I broke off from the left hand side of the first step, with various devices in bas-relief, as in Fig. 20 . On reaching the second door, we continued the descent, with artificial light, by a very gentle declivity. Turning at right angles, we entered through a door into a chamber sixty-four yards long, and nearly as large as those before described; beyond this there is another, exactly similar, having light from windows commanding a corridor fronting the south. Nothing was found in these places, except some plain stones, two yards and a half long by one yard and a quarter broad, supported by four square stands of masonry, rising about half a yard above the ground, partitioned off in the forms of alcoves, and were obviously receptacles for sleeping.

On an eminence to the south, there is a building about forty yards in height, forming a parallelogram, resembling the former in architecture; it has square pillars, an exterior gallery, and a saloon, twenty yards by three and a half, embellished with a frontispiece, on which are described female figures, with children in their arms, all of the natural size, in stucco medio-relief; they are without heads, as in Figs. 21 and 22. Some whimsical designs, as ornaments to the corners of the house, were brought away; they are numbered 8, 9, and 10. The inhabitants used such devices for the conveyance of their thoughts, but we cannot know their real meaning. In the gallery there are three stones, each three yards high and one broad, covered with the hieroglyphics in bas-relief recently mentioned. The whole of the gallery and saloon are paved. Passing by some ruins, in a little valley there is a similar structure. (Fig. 23.) Eastward there are three small eminences, forming a triangle, upon each of which is a square building, eighteen yards long, and eleven broad, having, along the thin roofings, superstructures about three yards high, resembling turrets, covered with ornaments and devices in stucco. In the interior of the first mansion, at the end of a dilapidated gallery, is a saloon, with a small chamber

                      Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                       139

at each end, and in the centre an oratory, three yards square, presenting, on each side of the entrance, a perpendicular stone, whereon there is the image of a man in bas-relief, as in Figs. 24, 25. On entering, the entire front is occupied by three stones, joined together, upon which there are the allegorical objects represented by Fig. 26. The outward decoration is a moulding, finished with small stucco bricks, and the bas-reliefs, Nos. 11 and 12. The pavement is smooth, and eight inches thick. In the centre, at the depth of about half a yard, was found a round earthen vessel, about a foot in diameter, fitted, horizontally, with lime to another of the same size. A quarter of a yard deeper, a circular stone was found, about a foot in diameter, and, on removing it, there was a cylindrical cavity, a foot wide, and a third of a foot deep, containing a flint lance, two small conical pyramids, with the figure of a heart in dark crystallized stone, named challa; and common in these parts. *

There were also two small earthen jars, or ewers, with covers, containing small stones, and a ball of vermilion. There was another similar cavity in each of the corners at the entrance of the oratory, containing the little jars Nos. 17 and 18. These things convey to the mind, that this was the spot where they venerated the memory of their greatest heroes, for the characters and bas-reliefs surrounding them evidently prove it.

The other two edifices vary only in the allegorical subjects of the bas-reliefs on the stones. In the second were found the delineations of men, as in Figs. 27, 28, and the front exhibited the three stones displayed in Fig. 29. On excavating, there were discovered a flint lance, two conical pyramids, the representation of a heart, and two earthen jars, numbered 19, 20, 21, 22,

Figure 30, the last of this collection, shows the interior front of the third oratory; it is like the others. If due attention be given to the bas-reliefs thereon, the conclusion is, that the ancient inhabitants lived in extreme darkness. † In other similar edifices, completely in ruins; on digging there were found an earthen vase, broken to pieces, which contained some small pieces of challa, in the shape of lancets, or thin

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* The Inca Huayna Capac, who died in 1527, desired that his body should be sent to Cuzco, and his heart to his beloved city of Quito. -- Vega, ii, 414.

† See remark on Plate xii.

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blades of razors, probably used as such by these uncivilized people. * They are numbered 23j 24. No. 25 is an earthen pot, containing a number of small bones, grinders, and teeth, found in the same excavation.

No. 26, and those that follow, denote the quality of the lime, mortar, and burnt bricks, used by the inhabitants. It may be inferred that the latter were used very sparingly, as all that could be found were brought away. On this second examination of this ruined city, no exertions have been spared to illustrate the points contained in the last royal mandate.

"Father de Soza describes other ruins between the curacy of Mona y Ticul and the town of Nocacab, twenty leagues from the city of Merida, (in Yucatan). One is a large building in good preservation, upon an eminence twenty yards high, and 200 yards on each fa9ade. The natives name it Oxmutal.

"The apartments, the exterior corridor, the pillars with figures in medio relievo, of serpents, lizards, &c., formed in stucco; beside which are statues of men with palms in their hands, in the act of beating drums and dancing; -- all resemble, in every respect, those in the buildings at Palenque.

"At a town called Mani, there is a conical stone pillory, (pillar ?) and on the south a very ancient palace resembling that at Palenque. These and other buildings on the road from Merida to Bacalar, evidently prove the identity of the ancient inhabitants of Yucatan and Palenque." -- Page 6.

Regarding the origin of the inhabitants of Palenque, Captain Don Antonio del Rio says -- "The conclusion must be, that the ancient inhabitants of these structures lived in extreme darkness; for in their fabulous superstitions we seem to view the idolatry of the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, and other primitive nations most strongly portrayed. On this account it may reasonably be conjectured, that some one of these nations pursued their conquests even to this country, where it is probable they only remained long enough to enable the Indian tribes to imitate their ideas, and adopt, in a rude and awkward manner, such arts as their invaders thought fit to inculcate." -- Page 19.

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* These are such as the Mexicans made their swords with. -- See Clavigero, Plate xii.

                      Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                       141

"Father Jacito Garrido, a Dominican friar, who was in these parts in 1638, where he taught theology, and was well versed in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages; cosmography, arithmetic, and music; has left a Latin manuscript, in which he states his opinion, that the northern parts of America had been discovered by the Greeks, English, and other nations, a supposition he deduces from the variety of languages, and some monuments in the village of Ocojingo, twenty-four leagues from Palenque; but these are the mere conjectures of the reverend writer, nor does he define the period when these alleged strangers arrived." -- Page 12.

The result of Dr. Cabrera's disquisition regarding the peopling of America, which he says is an "historical obscurity that has hitherto fatigued the greatest talents in the world" (page 35) is this -- "That Atlas made the first voyage to America; that Votan, a Hivite, third in descent from Hercules Tyrius, led a colony from Syria to Hispaniola, which is the island Atlantis; and from the capital of that island he embarked his first colony for the continent of America, and founded Palenque, from which city he visited the old world four times; that his port of arrival was Tripoli, in Syria; that he was in Spain, and that he visited Rome, and witnessed the building of the 'House of God,' by which is meant the temple that, during the consulate of Publius Cornelius Rufinus, was erected in honour of Romulus and Remus, B.C. 291; that it was from Votan that the Romans and Carthaginians obtained their first knowledge of America; and that Carthaginians emigrated, and founded the kingdom of Amaquemacan, (the original region from whence the Toltecs, Mexicans, and other tribes, arrived in Anahuac, and which Clavigero places in the north of America;) but that so many inhabitants emigrated, that the Carthaginian Senate passed a decree, commanding their return, as mentioned by Diodorus, and confirmed by Montezuma, in his discourses with Cortez ; that the Carthaginians, fearing some disaster from the Roman arms, kept from those conquerors the secret of their having this secure refuge; that, according to Indian tradition, Votan wrote his own history, which was taken from a cave by an Indian lady, who gave up the historical tract, and that it was publicly burnt in the square at

142                       Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                      

Huguetan, in the year 1691; that it is, however, possible, that Votan's tract, or another similar to it, may be that which is in the possession of Don Ramon de Ordonez y Aguiar, of Ciudad Real, a man of extraordinary genius, and at this time occupied in composing a work, the title of which is, Historia del Cielo y de la Terra, which traces the original population of America from Chaldea, immediately after the confusion of tongues. His study of the subject for more than thirty years, and his skill in the Tzendal language, in which the tract is written, lead us to anticipate a work so perfect in its kind as will completely astonish the world."

The erudite Doctor concludes his critical inquiry, of 103 pages, "about it, Goddess, and about it," in these words -- "It was my intention to call this a new Attempt to solve the grand problem; but in consequence of the valuable information which I have acquired from the learned work of the Bishop of Sonoro, I denominate it a Solution, and in so doing I sincerely trust the reader will not ascribe such alteration to an overstrained confidence in my own abilities."

On the above opinions of the three Spanish authors, no other remark is required, than that they have entirely neglected to examine that part of Asiatic history, which is the true source from which the solution can be drawn, and which is offered as follows: --

Neither history nor tradition, worthy of regard, existed in any part of America, when discovered by Columbus, earlier than the sixth century of the Christian era; from which period the nations in Anahuac, beginning with the Toltecs, date their arrival. South of the fine no annals whatever exist previous to the mysterious appearance of Mango Capac. -- (A.D. 1283.)

The Toltecs are the first people known to have arrived in America. They left their own country, A.D. 544, supposed to be the eastern part of Asia, and tarried at Casa Grande, which they built, (N. lat. 34 degrees, near California, by Robertson, 29 degrees by Clavigero,) and other places, 104 years; * they then arrived in Anahuac; and in the year 670 they founded Tula, after

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* Dr. Cabrera, p. 65, says the 104 years were passed in Africa.

                      Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                       143

the name of their native residence. They were acquainted with the art of casting gold and silver, and of cutting all kinds of gems. They brought with them from their own country an exact knowledge of the length of the solar year, where it had been known about a century before the Christian era. *

The Toltecs multiplied exceedingly, and extended their population in numerous and large cities; till, in the year 1052, they were dreadfully afflicted with drought, famine, and mortality, and their monarchy terminated. Some of the wretched remains removed to Yucatan, some to Guatemala, † and some dispersed themselves in Anahuac. There cannot be a doubt but that they had a clear notion of the Deluge. (Clavigero, i. 87.)

For about a century Anahuac remained nearly depopulated; when in the year 1170, a numerous party of Chechemecas arrived. They came from the north, and their native land they called Amaquemacan, where different monarchs had ruled their country many years. They were eighteen months upon the journey, and passed the ruins of the buildings of the Toltecs, (Casa Grande.) They had distinctions between the nobility and commonalty. They lived on game, fruits, and roots of spontaneous growth; were clothed in the skins of beasts, armed with bows and arrows, and worshipped the sun. They established themselves six miles north of the future Mexico. In process of time they formed alliances with the few Toltecs who had remained. Eight years afterwards, (in 1178,) six respectable persons, with a considerable retinue, arrived from a kingdom near Amaquemacan; these were the Nahuatlacs, and consisted of seven tribes, Sochimilcs, Chaleks, Tapanecs, Acolhauns, Tlahuics, Tlascaltecs, and Aztecs, who all spoke the Toltec language. -- (See Clavigero, B. ii., Humboldt, Res. ii. 251.)

After the beginning of the thirteenth century, Acolhuatzin, and two other princes, arrived with a great army of Acolhuans:

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* See Clavigero, ii. 226. Humboldt, Researches, ii. 249. Conquest of Peru and Mexico by the Moguls, A.D. 1283, p. 268. The knowledge of the Toltecs, regarding the year of 365 days and near six hours, agrees precisely with the Chinese history. See Du Halde, folio ii. 230, and Conquest by Mongols, p. 274.

† There is not any thing in the history, as far as is known, to warrant the idea of greater antiquity of the ruins in question, at these two places.

144                       Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                      

they were of the noble house of Citin. They represented themselves as sons of a great lord, and that they had been attracted by the reports they had heard of the hospitality of the Chechemecan monarch. The king was pleased with their manners, and gave his two daughters in marriage to the two eldest princes.

The last thiat arrived were the Aztecs. The whole of the above spoke the Toltec language. The Aztecs resided many years at Culiacan and other places, but settled themselves, and called their city Tenochtitlan, in 1324: it was afterwards named Mexico, and became an elective monarchy in 1377, Montezuma died in 1520; he was the ninth king, and was descended from the first monarch. Montezuma's ancestors had arrived in ships under the command of a mighty lord, but whether by design or accident was not manifest. *

Guatemala had been conquered by Ahuitzotl, the eighth king of Mexico, who died in 1502.

Regarding the ruins at Palenque, says Baron Humboldt, "they are evidences of the taste of the Toltec and Aztec race for the ornaments of architecture. We are absolutely ignorant of their antiquity, but it is scarcely probable that it goes back farther than the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries of our era." -- Researches, ii. 158.

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* Speech of Montezuma to Cortez. See Peter Martyr in Hakluyt, vol. iv. 558; Quarterly Journal of Science, January 1828, p. 359. Montezuma is an Asiatic name. The earliest writers, Peter Martyr, Purchas, Herera, Clavigero, (see Portrait, vol. i.), and others, spell the name Motezuma, and zin was added. Moti is a Chinese name, (Du Halde, Vol. i. p. 197, 203), and is also the name of the Emperor of the Kin, or Nioutches, (D'Herbelot, Canon Chronologique, iv. 276), who are Mongols, (Abul Ghazi, ii. 383.) Tscoum means venerable, (D'Herbelot, iv. p. 349, lines 8 and 23;) zin means great in the Mogul language, (Abul Ghazi Bahader, part iii. ch. iv.) Thus the name is consistent with the dignity of this famous monarch, who told Cortez that his armour, jewels, &c., were those which he had preserved from his forefathers, as the usage of kings is. -- (Conquest by the Mongols, p. 325.)

Regarding the Emperor telling Cortez, that the Children of the Sun expected bearded men from the Rising Sun, (a) or east; it could not mean Europe, as the Americans did not suspect the earth being spherical; and Japan is named Nipon, and in Chinese Sipon, both of which mean basis or foundation of the sun.

(a) Cabrera, page 60, This is the most important and principal mistake which has led this author, and many others, into their Carthaginian hypothesis. But Cortez, in his letter to the King of Spain, says; -- " I replied to all he had said in the way most suitable to myself, by making him believe your majesty to be the chief whom they have so long expected.-- p. 62.

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146                       Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                      

Description of the Seventeen Plates which are published; but not bound in the same order in Two Volumes which the Writer has seen; they are, therefore, now numbered and described so as to be easily referred to.

I. -- Is the largest plate, (fifteen inches by ten,) representing a Greek Cross, much decorated, with a bird perched upon it, with something like a branch in his beak. A man stands on each side of the Cross, one of whom is holding a figure of an imperfect or fabulous infant.

The borders appear to be registers of their victories, by the representation of heads, hands, and ears; accompanied with ciphers, to denote the numbers slain.

Remark. -- The Toltecs left their native land, A.D. 544, and the leader of the Guatemalans was Votan. It has been shown what tremendous convulsions existed among the Turks, whose head-quarters were in the Calmuc country at that period, * (Turquestan.) The eastern nation, called the Eastern Ouie, had a sovereign whose name was Voutim, and he was poisoned in the year 543. † Now it is quite probable that this is the same name as Votan, for D'Herbelot, from whom this is extracted, (vol. iv. p. 71,) uses m for n. Mongols he spells Moumgols, (see his Index.) The American tradition brings Votan from the north, (Humboldt, Res. i. 173. See also vol. i. p. 319, for the remarks of Baron H. regarding Votan: and also for the similitude of the border-registers of the Indians of Chiapa (Palenque) to those of the Mexicans.) The writer is averse to etymological proofs, but he does not deem this an overstrained one. With respect to the Cross, it was well known at this period in Tartary; the Turks and Huns warred with the Christians at Constantinople; and the Tartars of all descriptions ever called themselves descendants of Noah. At this epoch the Alcoran had not appeared. (Mahomet was born in 569.) These circumstances may very satisfactorily account for their knowledge of the Cross and the bird. The border-registers are in the style of those of the Mexicans, but not the same characters, nor so methodical. ‡

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* Conquest of Peru and Mexico, p. 269.

† "From 439 to 589, the north of China was governed by Tartars, the south by Chinese. Never was history more fertile in great events than during that period of brigandages." -- D'Herbelot, iv. 57.

‡ See Clavigero, Vol. i. p. 107,

                      Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                       147

The heads and ears are common with Mongols and Turks. The early Parthians cut off also the hand. The head and right hand of Crassus were presented to Arsaces Orodes. -- (Hist. Parthian Emp. by Lewis, p. 111.) Thus all these customs and allusions may be referred to Tartary in the year 544.

II. -- An ornament, probably in bas-relief -- two human figures, one with an animal's head, rather like a wolf, two human arms and two eyes, as if plucked from a criminal. Another ornament of a female half-figure, with a helmet and necklace. This head has a high skull.

Remark. -- The eyes prove this plate to allude to a custom common in Upper Asia. The Emperor of Bochara's eyes were put out, A.D. 998. Daw's Hindostan, i. 39.

III. -- A man in a decorated kind of helmet-head-dress, with a weapon in each hand, upon one of which is a small bird: a human head is upon his girdle; another man is upon his knees, with his hands joined, imploring for mercy: they have both long or high skulls. The neat border to this plate is merely ornamental, by its uniform design.

IV. -- A man in a helmet with a long necklace; a weapon in his right hand, and with the left holding another man by the hair, perhaps to behead him: the latter is seated. Under him is a skull, and a head which has been cut off. There is a register-border three inches long. Both of the men have long heads.

V. -- Several large designs like border-writing; with one of them there is a human profile, with a ram's head upon the forehead.

Remark, -- There were no sheep in America. Usbecs (i. e. Mongols) are distinguished by ensigns with black and white sheep. (Sir R. K. Porter's Travels in Persia, vol. i. p. xix.) The Peruvians and Siberians had figures of sheep in gold and in stone. The sheep was sacred with the Mongols in their sacrifices. -- (Marco Polo, p. 253, Conquest of Mexico and Peru, p. 221.)

VI. -- A warrior in a large fanciful helmet, upon which is a human head, and two others upon his girdle; a decorated staff in his left hand, with a bird at the top of it: a net-work shoulder-covering, and a kind of buskins on his feet. Two slaves are seated at the feet of the warrior, with their legs crossed under them, and one of them with terror expressed in his features,

148                       Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                      

Remark. -- These three persons, and nearly all the others represented in the seventeen plates, have remarkably high skulls and large aquiline prominent noses; * and some of them have projecting under lips. In a dissertation on this subject, (Humboldt's Researches, vol. i. 130,) it is said, that "this is also the essential character of the hieroglyphical pictures preserved at Vienna, Rome, and the palace of the Viceroy at Mexico." The greatest resemblance to any known people is to the Turks. Among these plates the features of the man upon the medal in No. ix., † may be those of a Calmuc; and many of the heads upon the border-writing of these pictures are rather flat than long. According to American history, the Toltecs left their native Tula, in Asia, A.D. 544, and being driven by famine from Anahuac, A.D. 1052, they settled in Guatemala and Yucatan. -- (Conquest by the Mongols, p. 269.)

From 506 to 545 Tartary was in the most convulsed state possible, and the Turks, whose head-quarters were near the sources of the Irtish, first rose to fame. This is now the head-quarters of the Calmucs. The Geougen Tartars resided at Tula, (near Lake Baikal,) in the year 520. In 555 the Turks had conquered all the north of Asia. Yakutz was named Northern Turquestan. Leao-tong was conquered, and they describe sledges drawn with dogs, as in Kamtschatka. -- (Gibbon, ch. xlii. D'Herbelot, iv. 89, et seq. De Guines, vol. i. part ii. p. Iviii. 352, iii. 7.) The Turks had been the most despised portion of the slaves of the Great Khan of the Geougen; but in a decisive battle the nation of the Geougen were nearly exterminated by the Turks about A.D. 545. The throne of Bertezena, the first leader of the Turks, the founder of which nation, like Romulus, having been suckled by a wolf, was turned towards the east, and a golden wolf upon the top of a spear seemed to guard the entrance of his tent. (A skeleton of a coyote, or American wolf, was found in a tomb in Mexico, in 1791, and there were in that city a chapel and a congregation of priests of the sacred wolf. Humboldt, Res, ii. 48, 319.) If we are strong, say the Turks, we advance and conquer; if feeble, we retire and are concealed.

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* See two of these heads in the: preceding plate, letter C,

† See the plate, D.

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China was invaded by these conquerors. They besieged the city of Bosphorus, at Lake Maeotis, subject to the Romans. (Gibbon, ch. xlii.) About this period the northern parts of China were entirely ruined, the Emperor turned bonza, and by his weakness threw the country into the most terrible anarchy. (See Du Halde, cycle, A.D. 484 to 544.) Tou-men, chief of the Tou-kiue nation, entirely defeated the Kao-tche Tartars, and carried off half a million of families. Emboldened by this success, he sent an embassy to China in the year 532. It is quite impossible to trace the persons or the geography of these warriors, but it is evident that there are abundant causes for flight and emigration. (See D'Herbelot, iv. 92.)

With respect to the shape of the skulls, it has long been the custom, in Asia, to shape the heads of infants according to fancy or fashion. The midwives at Constantinople inquire of the mother, after parturition, what form she wishes to be given to the head of the child? The Macrocephali, (a people of Asia Minor,) or Long Heads, moulded the skull to as great a length as possible. (Rees's Cyc. Cranium. Macrocephali.) The Omaquas, in South America, press the head between boards till it is nearly sharp at top, and flat before and behind. Some of the Americans have flat heads, some protuberances behind, a strange custom, at length become hereditary. The Council of Lima, in 1585, expressly prohibited these customs. But the free negroes and Maroons, although Africans, have adopted it since they have lived among the Caribs, in order to distinguish the children which are born free. (Enc, Brit, Macrophalus.)

There appears to be some mistakes and erroneous notions regarding the persons of the Calmucs. * "The nose of the Calmuc is ordinarily camus et ecrase vers le front, † the head and visage very round. We are led to believe, from some travellers, that the Calmucs are ugly, and even hideous, but they

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* See Rees's "Cyclopedia," Cranium, Mongolian variety.

† This line of beauty is accidental and does not generally apply. The writer of these notes passed a night in the house of a family in Finland, whose noses were thus deformed. The mother had a very young child lying upon her lap, and to free the infant's nose from its dripping incumbrance, she pressed it hard with her thumb upwards the whole length, and thus threw off the nuisance with a jerk, by which the child's nose was pressed flat, and the forehead, between the eyes, indented. She said it was the custom, and that they had no handkerchiefs. Thus, the poor classes of several northern tribes are disfisrured,

150                       Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                      

are a good-humoured race, and some of the women are fair, affable, and so handsome, and have such regular features, that they would find numerous admirers in all the cities of Europe." -- Pallas, 5 vols. 4to, tom. i. p. 496, et seq. If, in consequence of the Spanish decree in 1585, these deformations were no longer practised, nature would resume her true features, and we accordingly find that "the inhabitants of Guatemala are celebrated for personal beauty and sweetness of disposition, the women being reputed the handsomest in Spanish America." -- Rees's Cyc., Guat. It was from the Oighours, in the part of Tartary in question, that the Emperor Kublai procured four or five hundred beautiful concubines annually. -- Marco Polo, Note, 527. -- Wars and Sports, p. 62.

If we seek the cause of the Tartars and Americans forming their skulls in different shapes, it may fairly be conjectured, that in the manner of the negro afore-mentioned, it became a custom, in order to enable the warrior to prove that he had exhibited an enemy's head, his own nation being distinguished by some other peculiarity. It is remarkable, that the Turks and Calmucs are of the same region. -- See Humboldt on this subject. Researches, i. p. 126.

VII. -- Two men, in highly decorated dresses mutually holding a jointed bent staff, about six feet long, (perhaps a bow) with a small human head at one end of it, and a head at the feet of each. They appear to be chiefs in earnest conference, as if pledging fidelity. They have long heads.

VIII. -- Six large objects of border-writing, in which nothing is explicable, except a human eye and the cyphers which denote so many in number.

IX. -- Two round brass medallic representations. The first is a large tree, with a huge serpent twined round it, and eleven objects, perhaps meant for fruit, among the leaves. A smaller tree, with six such objects. Another tree, with a bird perched above it, and four small trees, making seven trees. The second represents a man, with a cap, or turban, upon his head, naked, and kneeling upon a flight of several steps. A monstrous beast's head, with the jaws open, is seen before him, and another behind him, as if threatening to devour him. There are two trees, each with six of the fruit upon it, and four small trees, with part of another tree at the edge, making eight. The medal, says Dr.

                      Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                       151

Cabrera, (p. 54.) represents the expulsion of the Chichemacas from Amaquemacan, which is the city of Palenque, and not in the north of Mexico, or in Asia, as others have described. The seven trees represent the seven tribes. * The large tree is cieba, or wild cotton, with a snake twisted round it, which shows Votan to be a Hivite and the principal posterity of Cadmus. Votan had brought the first settlers, seven families, from Hispaniolia. Having visited Tripoli, he was surprised on his return to find that seven more tribes had arrived and blended themselves with the others who were of the same origin: and that they were named Nahuatlacas or Tzequiles, the latter being the name by which the Mexicans are known by the natives of Chiapa. (p. 95. †)

Remark. -- This medal is, without any doubt, of Calmuc origin. The destroying beast is exactly the same that appears in the representation of the idols of Sungore, or Zungore, Calmucs. In that of Iamandaga, this beast is running, with a condemned Calmuc upon his back. In another, of Erlik Han, ‡ he is trampling upon a wretched criminal. Iamandaga § is a destroyer, and is enveloped by a monstrous serpent, many yards long, the skin and claws of a tiger and other beasts, an elephant's head, and human limbs; he is crowned with skulls, and holds in one of his left hands, for he has six arms, and has upon his head likewise, a sceptre with a skull upon it, adorned with flowers, and a profusion of jewels, and a snake twisted about it ||. (Dr. Cabrera says, that Captain del Rio discovered in the Temple at Palenque, a figure of Isis, with a cap similar to that of Osiris, holding with both hands a twisted stick, adorned with flowers, having at one end a human head. -- Page 44.) Erlik Han is sovereign of the infernal regions; he has the human body, with a hideous face, and bulls' horns, and there are three divinities above him, to represent the sun, moon, and stars,

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* If the conjecture of Dr. Cabrera, that the trees relate to the seven tribes, he allowed, this medal is of the twelfth century. But it does not appear to the writer that the trees have any reference to the seven tribes. Medals were a part of the dress of a Tartar general. --- Conquest by Mongols, p. 216.

† See Baron Humboldt's remarks on Votan, Wodan, Odin, of the Goths and Celts. -- Researches, Vol. i. 173, 319.

‡ See the plate, B.

§ See the plate, A.

|| This is, in many respects, similar to the Mexican God of Terror, Tetzauhteotl, whose "body was girt with a large golden snake, and adorned with various lesser figures of animals, made of gold and precious stones. They never made war without imploring the protection of this god with prayers, and offered up to him a greater number of human victims than to any other of the gods." -- Clavigero, i. 256.

152                       Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                      

who wear a head-dress in shape like a mitre. --- (Dr. Cabrera, page 38, describes an idol at Palenque, with a mitre, or cap, with bulls' horns, and says that, without doubt, it is Osiris.) So minutely do the descriptions of Dr. Cabrera agree with the figures in M. Chappe's volume, that he mentions a strap, or thong, with three ends, in the right hand of Osiris, and Iamandaga has precisely such a strap in his right hand. * This idol has upon his feet buskins, or caligae, similar to those on the soles of the feet of several persons in these plates.

X. -- A man, probably a divinity, seated upon a kind of throne, supported by two beastslike panthers, with his right leg bent horizontally before him, dressed in a helmet and feathers, a fringed apron, a necklace and wrist ornaments, a small portion of border-writing of a human head. This figure has the long or high skull.

Remark. -- The Calmuc divinities are represented with one or both legs under them, generally like Bhudda, (Chappe, Vol. i. several plates,) but this is more probably a Turcoman idol ; the Calmuc and Turquestan region being the same. This is the most civilised of all the figures. It has a kind of Persian elegance, like the Calmuc idol Zouncaba, in Chappe, Plate xxiii.

XI. -- A full human figure, very fancifully decorated, the head of a bird over his head, and an instrument in his mouth, as if blowing it. Above the ancles, and at the wrists, it has ornaments round them; they appear to be composed of about twenty-five pieces of sticks or shells, three or four inches long, and close together.

XII. -- A building, three stories of which are represented. They diminish in size at each story; the entrance is by doors: there are not any windows. The interior was filled with loose sandy earth. In the small turrets, at the top of the tower, there were two stones embedded in the walls, on which were sculptured two female figures, with extended arms, each supporting an infant, very imperfect, which appears to point out that this was the burial place of two queens. There were three crowned heads,

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* See the accompanying engravings, copied from Vol. i.303, 308, of Voyage en Siberie, par M. Chappe d'Auteroche, 3 vols, folio. Paris, 1768. The third volume is a description of Kamtchatka, by Professor Kracheninikof. This splendid work contains very numerous fine engravings. It is called two volumes, but is boHnd in three.

                      Mr. Ranking on the Ruins of Palenque.                       153

[ 323 ]

(Continued from our last vol. and concluded.)

Guatemala and Yucatan have been proved, by the remarks on the ruins at Palenque, to bear strong evidence of their having been peopled by Asiatics; Turks, Moguls, and Calmucs. Identifications of a more general nature will now be given, which will probably not leave any doubt on the subject. They are derived from a Spaniard who is a native of the city of New Guatemala. * When the Toltecs arrived in Guatemala, their king Nima Quiche died during their journey from Tula, and his three brothers divided the country between them. From this family, all the progeny of kings derive their origin, (pp. 165, 404). They found the country possessed by different nations, (p. 161). ‡ The third Toltecan emperor, Hunahpu,

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* A Statistical and Commercial History of the Kingdom of Guatemala, from original records in the archives, actual observations, &c. by Don Domingo Juarros. Translated by Lieutenant J. Bailey, R. M. 8vo. London, 1823.

† We have seen that the Toltecs emigrated from Anahuac, A.D. 1052, See this Journal, No. V. p. 143.

324                         Mr. Ranking on Ancient Guatemala.                        

is celebrated for discovering the use of cocoa and cotton (p. 164).

Remark. -- It thus appears tolerably evident, that the nations on the arrival of the Toltecs, A.D. 1052, had neither kings, cocoa, nor cotton, which marks two epochs of population; and some of the following facts give every reason to conclude that a third epoch dates from the invasion of Japan, in 1283.

Anil is the American name for indigo, in Guatemala. -- (Juarros 263. Rees's Cyc. "Indigo.") It was known to the Romans and to modern Europe, by the names of indicum and indigo. Nil and anil are the Arabic and Asiatic words. -- (Purchas, vol. v, 570). Those who knew not the use of cocoa and cotton, were not likely to manufacture indigo.

Balam Acan, the fifth emperor of the Toltecs, was carried in a rich chair of state, splendidly ornamented with gold, emeralds, and other jewels, upon the shoulders of his nobles -- (p, 174). Sinacam, when he approached in his litter, preceded by trumpets and drums, addressed Alvarado, the Spaniard, as a descendant of the Sun; (having the same awe for that race as the Mexicans and Peruvians;) Sinacam wore a crown, and held a sceptre in his hand. -- (pp. 424, 448, and Las Casas, p. 41).

The Guatemalans had pyramids like those of Mexico (463). They sacrificed a Spaniard and some Indians of Tlascala, to their Idol Camanelon (p. 443), and others to their Idol Esbalanquen, (p. 471). They used the skulls as drinking cups, and ate human flesh (p. 356). -- Such are the Calmuc Idols in this journal, "No. V. p. 145.

The province of Quiche, so named from the first Toltec leader from Anahuac (p. 163), had for its capital the city of Utatlan, the most magnificent in Guatemala while under its native sovereigns. The castle, of hewn stone, was four stories high, 376 paces in front, and 728 in depth; the palaces were equal to those of Montezuma and the Incas. The streets were narrow. The population was so great, that it furnished 72,000 combatants to oppose the Spaniards. There was a superb edifice, in which above 5000 children were educated under 70 masters. In one of the saloons of the castle stood the

                        Mr. Ranking on Ancient Guatemala.                         325

throne, covered with four canopies of plumage, and the ascent was by several steps. It contained the treasury, court of justice, the armory, gardens, aviaries, and menageries. The fourth and fifth divisions were for the queens, and royal concubines, who were maintained most magnificently. The sixth division was for the king's daughters, and others of the blood royal (pp. 85-88). There were many other considerable cities in this, said to be the most populous portion of America at the Spanish conquest.

After Mitlan * was taken by the Spaniards, they marched to Esquipulas and to the city of Copan; the name of the Cacique was Calel. † There was a great circus near this opulent and populous city. Calel had 30,000 veteran troops armed with bows, slings, and swords with stone (flint) edges. His entrenchment was defended on one side by a mountain, and by a deep fosse formed of strong beams, the interstices filled with earth, in which were embrazures and loop holes, for the discharge of their arrows at the enemy. A shower of pikes, stones, and arrows, obliged the Spaniards to retreat precipitately; the next assault lasted the whole day. The Indians had shields of tapir skins, ‡ and with pikes hardened in the fire, obliged Hernando de Chaves again to retreat. In the next desperate conflict, a part of the palisade gave way, and the cavalry entered: the Indians fled. Calel quickly returned reinforced, and was defeated, but escaped. He afterwards sent ambassadors with a present of gold and a mantle to Chaves, and was received into protection with great distinction. Near this place, on the farm of Penol, some gigantic skeletons were found, the shin bones of which measured near two varas in length, a vara is thirty-three inches English (pp. 45, 303.) In the valley of Petapa near Old Guatemala, a molar tooth was found, as large as a man's two fists, (p. 492). (Here is a chief with a Mogul name, elephants' bones, and a stockade like those of the Burmese and Assamese. The writer has

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* There are ruins of some elegance at this place, which are not supposed to be of an older date than the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Humboldt, ii. 158.

† This is a Mogul name; Calil was grandson and successor to Tamerlane.

‡ Tapirs are often mentioned by Juarros, as very numerous in Guatemala. This noble region is the Italy of America. Some of the cedars are seven fathoms in circumference (p. 233).

326                       Mr. Ranking on Ancient Guatemala.                      

conjectured, that part of the Japan expedition was from Assam, which at that period belonged to the Moguls.)

At the conquest of Quiche, the Spaniards were opposed by Tecum Umam, who had 232,000 warriors. "He had fortified towns, and in his camp were several military machines, or small castles, formed of beams and planks, which, being placed upon rollers, were moved by armed men. They were filled with great quantities of pikes, arrows, lances, shields, slings, and stones; and attended by chosen bodies of soldiers, to distribute them, (p. 390)." -- This is very like the warfare of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane; the arms are the same. The only difference is, that in Asia, the military machines were drawn by cattle. The golden chair, schools, indigo, architecture, idols, throne, menageries, arms, stockades, and remains of elephants, all tend to prove that Calel was a Chinese Mogul. It is very curious, that some natives of India, in the neighbourhood of Ava, are described in the Periplus, (Sequel by Vincent, p. 115), with "heads long from the forehead to the chin, and projecting like the face of a horse." See the plate in this Journal, No. V. p. 144. Ava had been invaded by Oguz the Turk, about 650 years B.C.

The manuscript of Francisco Garcia Calel Tzumpan Xavila, a descendant from the kings of Quichd, written in 1544, relates that thirteen armies left the old continent, headed by as many principal families, who were all related, but five were more illustrious than the rest -- the families of Capichoch, Cochohlam, Mahquinalo, Ahcanail, and Belehebcan. * From Capichoch the family of Nimaquiche and all the royal Guatemalans are descended. The Quiches and Mexicans were of the same race and acknowledged relationship. When Montezuma was imprisoned by Cortez, he sent a private message to Kikab Tanub for assistance. † A certain stone which their forefathers had brought from Egypt, and which they worshipped, split in two

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* In personal names this may mean Khan. Genghiscan is the usual spelling of French authors.

† The Mexican History relates, that Montezuma's predecessor carried his victorious arms to Guatemala. It is, however, denied by Juarros that the Mexicans conquered that kingdom: he says they were repulsed, but that vast numbers of Mexicans were sent, under the disguise of merchants, to settle themselves preparatory to future endeavours.

            Mr. Ranking on the Origin of the American Indians.             327

suddenly, which omen portended certain ruin. * The Indians, who came with the Spaniards from Mexico and Tlascala, were persuaded of the identity of their origin with the Guatemalans, Juarros, p. 165. It was in Veragua, the south province of Guatemala, that Columbus saw the first solid architecture of stone and lime, and copper hatchets at Honduras. He found a warlike people, and a chief, at whose dwelling 300 skulls of enemies were exhibited. Columbus felt persuaded that this was the coast of Asia. (See Life of Columbus, by Washington Irving, vol. iii. pp. 200, 225, 259.) Thus the architecture and civilization of Guatemala cannot be referred to an earlier period than A.D. 1052, and much of it is no doubt considerably later, from its corresponding with the gigantic style of the Peruvians and Mexicans.... [remainder not copied]

PRESUMTIVE  EVIDENCE     (pp. 250-59)